CHILDREN'S QUESTIONING. 799 



THE EDUCATIVE VALUE OF CHILDREN'S 

 QUESTIONING. 



By HENRY L. CLAPP. 



I KNOW intimately a little boy, now six and a half years old, 

 who has been a persistent questioner since he was four. 

 Thirteen months ago he began to read, and now reads The 

 Youth's Companion, Alice in Wonderland, Lang's and Andersen's 

 Fairy Tales, Kingsley's Water Babies, and Greek Heroes, school 

 readers, and many other books with good understanding and 

 excellent expression. As he has never been to school, and never 

 has received a day's instruction in reading that is, direct in- 

 struction, such as characterizes school work his progress must 

 be accounted for in some other way. Since it is not my purpose 

 to describe in detail how he learned to read, I will simply say 

 that it may be attributed wholly to persistent questioning on his 

 part, being answered by his hearers, and having ample oppor- 

 tunities to practice what he found out. To this indirect instruc- 

 tion, excessively fragmentary and depending wholly upon his 

 choice, there has been practically no limit. 



When he was about four years old he would follow up his 

 questions immediately with "Tell me. Why?" When he was 

 five he introduced every subject he wished to talk about with 

 "What do you think ?" At six he dropped that, and substituted 

 " Do you know what ? " But, after two years and a half, he seems 

 to entertain no thought of giving up " Tell me." 



His favorite times for asking questions are when he is being 

 dressed in the morning and at his meals. At other times during 

 the day his questions occur at very irregular intervals, and only 

 a* few or one at a time. Sometimes he will read for an hour 

 without saying a word, and then, when at play, will ask a ques- 

 tion pertaining to what he has read. Often he will skip forward 

 and back for fifteen minutes without speaking, and then ask a 

 question about something Upon which he has apparently been 

 meditating. Frequently he sits at the table in silence for ten 

 minutes, apparently taking no notice of conversation, meditating 

 on some word or idea obtained from something he has read. It 

 becomes evident, later, that he can carry on his own train of 

 thought and at the same time hear and understand conversation, 

 because he questions about both. 



His mother used the word "disposed" at the breakfast table, 

 but he seemed to take no notice of the conversation going on. 

 At night, when jumping about the room for the mere pleasure of 

 movement, he turned suddenly to me and asked, " What does 

 'disposed' mean?" One morning I heard him ask his mother 



